Suffering, Selfishness, and Seeing Eye Dogs

"God puts His best soldiers on the front line in battle", this was the profound thought that Daniel Savala would present to us two Thursdays ago.  It has been continually shown why I would need to hear that statement.  The following day, a fine soldier would be relieved of his post here on Earth, and some of us would question it.  I didn't doubt God's lovingkindness or His faithfulness, or His healing, but my theology had been shaken up a bit.  This leads me to think that I should study the "theo" more than the "logy", but there are some things we just don't know as to why they happen.  I believe it to be a great blasphemy against the character of God to say that my friend dying of cancer was somehow in God's plan.  What I can say though, is that God has made and is making a beautiful flower garden out of the manure pile of what this week has become.

What does it mean to know the full weight of the crucifixion of Jesus? I don't know.  I still have yet to wrap my head around it, but I now can honestly say that I know, at least to an extent, how selfishness hurts people.  My dog was killed due to a weird mixture of random chance and carelessness.  That dog was instrumental in leading me to Jesus.  She did absolutely nothing wrong in regards to deserving her fatal injuries, but they happened.  I don't know who hit her, I don't know their motives for driving so fast, or for not stopping.  I could speculate, but to judge righteously, one must hope for the best in people.  The fact of the matter is, due to apathy, drunkenness, a feeling of being rushed, or whatever it may be, the individuals probably did not know how much they hurt me, or the gravity of what they did.  I am not bitter, but I'm saying these things for the sake of making it known that though this real-life illustration, we can see how dangerous selfishness is.  Sin is selfishness.  The two go hand-in-hand.  Sin is not an act, but a choice, and the intent of the heart.  All of us have sinned against a good and just God who did not deserve the pain we caused Him.  Every sin has a consequence, and I'm not just talking about spiritual things, even secret sins ultimately hurt someone else.  If there is one thing that we can learn from my dog's death, it's that we need God, and we need an unselfish love for Him.  We need a baptism of holiness, and we need to give up sin.  Only Jesus can take it away, not any pathetic universalist westernized worldview we have, or any humanism, self help, eastern religion, etc.  These still provide for mankind to be evil, but suppressed.  Jesus provides for you to be holy and free!  Come to Jesus, because you never know how many Seeing-Eye dogs you've killed.